World Mental Health Day: Promoting Positive Mental Health at Work (and why productivity will plummet if you don’t)

Stressed at your desk? Tearing your hair out over targets? Give yourself a break – last Saturday it was World Mental Health Day. Hosted by the World Federation of Mental Health, the day of observance calls attention to the estimated one in four adults, and one in ten children who are likely to suffer a mental health problem in any given year.

Despite its huge prevalence, however, mental health remains a misunderstood and often largely ignored issue. But simply sweeping it under the rug won’t do; quite aside from the detriment to personal life, ignoring mental health concerns can be enormously expensive to employers too.

Stress, in particular, is one of the biggest health problems affecting adults in the UK and the US, with 97% of employees suggesting they felt some level of stress in research carried out this year.

Working environments are inevitably pressurized on some (though hopefully not all) occasions – but it’s when the workplace becomes the source of that stress that employers need to act.

A recent US and Canada-wide survey revealed that a massive 67% felt their company could fire them at any time, and 80% were more inclined to work alone due to “unhelpful or hostile” work environments. Clearly, these conditions are conducive to neither personal nor professional wellbeing, and can be intensely damaging to a business’s bottom line, with 1 in 5 people taking days off work just to try and tackle the issue.

The majority of employers, though, lack the knowledge and resource to improve mindfulness amongst their staff. Having myself recently tackled a Tough Mudder assault course to fundraise for mental health charity Mind, I thought it useful to share some of the organization’s advice to employers on this important issue.

1. Assess the Situation

Conducting a staff survey is a good place to start in gauging the mental wellbeing of your workforce. Simply listening to what they have to say and making good mental health a priority in your company can help remove some of the taboo about discussing it at work – and with a better picture of the problems affecting your employees, you can make a better plan to help them.

2. Promote Wellbeing

In order to improve productivity and performance, you need to also promote wellbeing, and working people too hard will ultimately have an adverse effect. It’s the job of management to ensure employees have a good work/life balance, and introducing flexible working schemes to accommodate childcare arrangements, for instance, can be key. A company culture that encourages strong working relationships and leaves room for social activities too can turn your people into real business assets.

3.Tackle Causes

Unsurprisingly, a business that neglects its staff and fosters unhealthy working practices will find it difficult to retain or even engage employees. Managing workloads so workers aren’t overloaded, and providing environments that are calm and comfortable can nip burgeoning issues in the bud. As ever, good communication is key. 

4. Support Staff

If staff start to struggle with mental health, it’s important they feel supported by their organization. Fundamentally this involves being open to honest dialogue, and having a plan in place should somebody need to take time out. Mind advises focussing on the person, not the problem – employees with health issues are still enormously valuable to your business, and with the right approach to accommodating their return, can continue to be for a long time to come.

5. Act Today

With numbers of people affected by mental health problems so high, it’s too big an issue for employers to ignore. Putting the wellbeing of your workforce first will help not only them, but your business and its bottom line, immeasurably. 

For more insight into the challenges affecting the modern workforce and how HR and business leaders can adapt to them, read more at Fairsail’s HRsquared blog.